Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0003208, Fri, 17 Jul 1998 15:22:04 -0700

Subject
Botkin (fwd)
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 15:20:26 -0400
From: "Julian W. Connolly" <jwc4w@virginia.edu>

Botkin's legacy lives on. A couple of years ago appeared the book "Lost
Tales: Stories for the Tsar's Children" by Gleb Botkin. The blurb
prepared by "Access Russia" reads in part: "While [confined] in Tobolsk,
the children amused themselves by writing engaging, lively and ironic
stories together, each insisting on and writing different parts of the same
story. The son of the family's famous physician, Eugene Botkin, was a
skilled illustrator, specializing in depicting animals in court uniforms.
Botkin would ferry out the story lines the children created, and ferry in
his son's illustrations." At the Amazon.com site, a reader writes: "If we
allow ourselves to be transported to another world, where the monarchy is
as benign as that seen through the eyes of the children of the Tsar and
Tsarina, and through the eyes of the young son of their heroic Dr. Botkin,
then we can enjoy these amusing tales. As in sets of colorful toy
soldiers, the characters are male...." We can see the relevance for _Pale
Fire_.